Charta is interested to be listed as experienced provider if gdal.org
will ever add info about commercial support.
Nevertheless, I think this item has to receive more attention,
considering at least:
* the license of GDAL. Using MIT license means being expecially open
to commercial usage. I don't know if this is really consequential with
selecting a group of commercial providers instead of being agnostic
about usage of the code and technology created (I don't agree with
this, but...);
* usually support means choice between several tools and technologies,
being a core contributor could mean some bias about recurring to a
specific tool. Being listed as such could become a double-edged sword;
* any evaluation aobut support should be based on the help provided to
the user and not about the contribution to the project. The client
shoud be able to choose if he needs "broad" or "focused" support, if
he needs new developments or better integration and so on. Listing
experiences or specialisation (geodatabases, remote sensing and so on)
could be more useful.
Even's case is noteworthy, because he is more than a "Core
contributor", but a project leader for GDAL. When his affiliation to
École des Mines changed to his own company, Spatialys, I thought this
was a very good move because he could more easily provide consulting
services to commercial entities. Maybe his visibility as a prominent
person in this community is already warranted, I understand that his
proposal is addressed to others, but I think gdal-dev is about
developing, although the list provides a lot of help to users, is this
the right place?
c
On Thu, Aug 20, 2014 at 10:02:35 PM, Even Rouault wrote:
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 22:02:35 +0200
From: Even Rouault <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: [gdal-dev] Adding a "Commercial support" section on gdal.org
?
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hi,
I'm wondering if there would be a concensus and interest to add a
"Commercial
support" section on gdal.org. A number of OSGeo projects have
such page (see
[1]), so that wouldn't be completely awkward to have one for GDAL as well.
The OSGeo Service provider database reference 137
companies/individuals that
have registered themselves as providing GDAL support ([2]) !
Pretty cool, but
I'm wondering how a user not familiar with the project could
effectively use
that list to identify core contributors from casual advanced users.
If we agree for adding a "Commercial support" section, the
question is : on
which criteria do we accept an organization/individual to be listed in the
section ? We would want them to be as most objective and non debatable as
possible.
A simple criterion could be anyone who has commit rights (in
trunk, not just
in a sandbox or customer branch). There are currently 56 SVN
committers. That
could be strengthened with a minimum number of commits/lines
changed during a
period, but we perhaps don't need that level of complexity.
We could possibly also extend that to entities that provide
public support to
users through gdal-dev or other public forums (gis.stackexchange,
others?).
Other suggestions ?
Should we distinguish several categories of actors ?
- QGIS makes a division between "Core contributors" vs "Contributors".
GeoServer has "Core contributors", "Experienced providers" and "Additional
services" (the last one is populated on service provider request).
- On the other side, deegree, Geomoose or Geotools simply list them in a
single section.
The answer likely depends on the number of organizations that
would be listed
(I guess below 10 we don't need much structure). The difficulty
here would be to
establish the categories and criteria.
So, could entities interested in being listed reply to this email
so we can
have a better idea of how many would be listed, and if we need
more stricter
criteria or several categories ?
As far as I'm concerned, Spatialys would be interested.
Best regards,
Even
[1] Non exhaustive list of OSGeo projects with a commercial
support section :
http://geoserver.org/support/
http://www.geomoose.org/info/commercial_support.html
http://docs.geotools.org/latest/userguide/welcome/support.html
http://wiki.deegree.org/deegreeWiki/GettingSupport
http://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/commercial_support.html
[2] OSGeo Service Provider catalog with entities declaring GDAL
expertise :
http://www.osgeo.org/search_profile?SET=1&MUL_TECH[]=00013
--
Spatialys - Geospatial professional services
http://www.spatialys.com
--
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Carlo A. Bertelli
Charta servizi e sistemi per il territorio e la storia ambientale srl
Dipendenze del palazzo Doria,
vc. alla Chiesa della Maddalena 9/2 16124 Genova (Italy)
tel. +39(0)10 2475439 fax +39(0)10 2475439 gsm:+39 393 1590711
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